Trippin

I met someone on line, from a place I've dreamed of visiting since I first read about it when I was a boy. Life and work made that dream seem impossible. Now that I'm older and my body isn't what it once was my dreams of visiting that country seemed silly. To be able to go there and blindly stumble around the country to learn and experience it, it's people and it's natural beauty would be to much for an old guy.

Well, my new found friend offered to take some time from their life and show me around. I've communicated with them enough to feel safe. It doesn't sound like someone who will knock me over the head and leave me lost with nothing. They've even offered to put me up during my stay. So I think that if they will do that, then with the money I would have spent for lodging I could pay for the food and to help out with other things while I'm there.

I've expressed that I'm not interested in seeing what tourists see, but instead I would like to see the normal everyday life and have a chance to talk with the normal everyday people. To experience and learn about the real country and not the flash that most countries show to impress the average tourists.

I'm a country boy who lives in the real working world. Not a city boy who has ideas of a work day being nine to five and earning a ton of money for doing next to nothing that's really worthwhile. I've no desire to visit concrete jungles when I can see the fields, forests and jungles that nature made. I believe in getting my hands and feet in the dirt and my nose in the fresh air of real beauty.

There is so much to see when you get out of the cities and learn from the real people that make up a country. The same kind of people that get overlooked here in the US by visitors from other countries when they visit the big cities.

It's no wonder to me that so many have such a low opinion of the US. They never leave the flash bang of the big cities and get to know about the real life of the majority of the people who make up this country. Heck, even most of the city people in the US don't have a clue what life really has to hold here.

They can't see the care we have for each other and life. When I've been around cities I've felt the emptiness the people have for strangers. I've been aware of the desire to know other people just to get something from them. I've heard the city people and their uninformed ideas of how nature and wildlife should be taken care of when they're barely aware of what they really are. My entire life I've witnessed their political views and how they have done so much bad for not only this country, but the world.

Yes, give me real down home country people from anywhere in this world and I'm sure I'll get the real feelings for a country and what it really stands for.

My trip is being planned for very early next spring before the planting season gets underway and the time absorbing work begins in earnest here. Yes, we may never pass this way again, so I'm darned sure going to take this opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream and enjoy and cherish every moment and sight.

Forgive me if I sound like an excited kid at Christmas, but in all truth that's how I feel. I can not wait to see my new friend and get to talk to them while I can see their eyes and enjoy their smile first hand.

When I do finally get to take my journey to this beautiful place I will try and take pictures and tell you all about it here in the blog. Heck, if I could afford it I would probably become a world traveler and try and do nothing but that for a blog. How darned cool would that be...

An old guy with a tired old used up body, limping around with the help of a cane, showing others how they too can do it...

This has given me smiles for the past several months and I'm sure will continue to give me smiles for the rest of my life! Hope your day is filled with smiles too!